MATERIAL PROGRESS
[1860]
The population of the United States in 1860 was 31,443,321. In spite of
the threatening political complications between 1840 and 1860, these
years were characterized by astonishing economic prosperity. The decade
after 1848 was, indeed, in point of advance in material weal, the golden
age of our history. Between 1850 and 1860, the wealth of the nation
swelled 120 per cent., the value of its farms 103 per cent., its total
manufacturing product 87 per cent., its manufactured export 171 per
cent., its railroad mileage 220 per cent. Making all due allowance for
the rise of prices during the period, this is still a remarkable
exhibit.
The great West continued to come under the hand of civilization. Between
1850 and 1860 our centre of population made a longer stride westward
than during any other decade--from east of the meridian of Parkersburg,
W. Va., to the meridian of Chillicothe, O. Florida and Texas having been
admitted to statehood in 1845, Iowa followed next year, Wisconsin in
1848, California in 1850, Minnesota, which had been an organized
Territory since 1849, in 1858, and Oregon in 1859. Kansas, Nebraska,
Utah, and Washington Territories were organized before 1860. By this
date there were settlements far up the Rio Grande. The Pacific coast was
sought for lands and homes as well as for gold. Fremont's expeditions in
1842, 1844, and 1848 had done much to show people the way thither. In
1853 the Government sent out four different parties to survey suitable
routes for a Pacific railway, a work followed up by three other parties
the next summer. The settlements in Oregon had, by 1845, in places
become dense.
[Illustration: Portrait.]
Elias Howe.
Immigration hither was unfortunately checked a little later by Indian
hostilities, the gravest attacks being in 1847 and 1855. In the latter
year Major Haller, leading an exploring party, was surrounded by the
savages and cut off from food and water, only making his escape by a
fight of two days against overwhelming odds. He and his party at last
hewed their desperate way through, losing their entire outfit, besides
one-fifth of their number. The whole territory was harassed by Indians
on the war path, and General Wool had to be sent up from San Francisco
to restore peace. This done, immigration was renewed. A thousand new
inhabitants came to Oregon in 1852, and its northern half was organized
as Washington Territory the following year. The Pacific Mail Steamship
Company had been chartered in 1848, and four years earlier a newspaper
started, the first in English on that coast. Its seat was Oregon City,
its name the Flumgudgeon Gazette.
[Illustration: The Vandalia. The Pioneer Propeller On the Lakes.]
[Illustration: Old Stone Towers of the Niagara Suspension Bridge.]
The old West prospered, notwithstanding the drain which it, in common
with the East, experienced in favor of parts farther toward the setting
sun. The first lake propeller was launched at Cleveland in 1847. The
same year the Tribune was started in Chicago. In 1850 the city had its
theatre and its board of trade. The Chicago streets began this year to
be lighted with gas. The first bridge across the Mississippi was built
in 1855 at Minneapolis; that at Rock Island, 1,582 feet long, in 1856.
The Niagara suspension bridge was finished in 1855.
The increase of railways did not at once end the opening of canals. The
Miami Canal, between Cincinnati and Toledo, 215 miles, begun in 1825,
was finished in 1843, and the Wabash and Erie, between Evansville and
Toledo, opened in 1851; but the Middlesex Canal in Massachusetts was, in
1853, abandoned and filled up from the loss of its business to
railroads. In 1857 the Pennsylvania Railroad Company purchased from the
State the canal and railway line from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh, and
soon after extended the railway portion to cover the whole. A traveller
from Boston to the West could get to Rochester by rail in 1841. Next
year he could go on to Buffalo by the same means. In 1842, Augusta, Ga.,
was connected by rail with Atlanta, Savannah with Macon, and the Boston
& Maine Railway finished to Berwick.
[Illustration: The New Iron Towers of the Niagara Bridge.]
The first railway out of Chicago--it was the first in Illinois--was
built in 1850, to Elgin. Chicago had no railway connection with the East
till two years later, when the Michigan Southern was opened. The
Michigan Central was finished soon after the Southern, and the Rock
Island before the end of the year. The Michigan Central had direct
connection east across Canada to Niagara Falls by 1854. In 1856 the
Burlington route reached the Mississippi and the Rock Island went on to
Iowa City. This year witnessed the opening of the first railroad in
California--from Sacramento to Folsom. In 1857 Chicago and St. Louis
were joined by rails, as also the latter city with Baltimore, over the
Parkersburg branch of the Baltimore & Ohio.
[Illustration: Three story frame building; first floor is shops.]
Birthplace of S. F. B. Morse, at Charlestown, Mass. Built 1775.
[Illustration: Portrait.]
S. F. B. Morse.
We now come to an improvement of which the preceding period knew
nothing, the magnetic telegraph, introduced by Professor Morse in 1844.
In this year Morse secured a congressional appropriation of $30,000 for
a line from Washington to Baltimore. The wires were at first encased in
tubes underground. In spite of the success of the project, further
governmental patronage was refused, the Postmaster-General advising
against it under the conviction that the invention could not become
practically valuable. Morse appealed for aid from private capitalists.
Ezra Cornell, of New York, soon opened a short line in Boston for
exhibition, following this with a similar enterprise in New York City.
The admission fee was twelve and a half cents. Few cared to pay even
this trifle, so that the undertaking was hardly a success in either
city.
Amos Kendall then engaged as Morse's agent, and by dint of great effort
secured subscriptions for a line from New York to Philadelphia, being
obliged to sell the shares for one-half their face value. Incorporation
was secured from the Maryland Legislature, under the first American
charter, for the telegraph business. The line was completed in 1845 to
the Hudson opposite the upper end of Manhattan Island, and an effort
made to insulate the wire and connect with the city along the bottom of
the river. This failed, and for some time messages had to be taken over
in boats. In 1846 the wire was carried on to Baltimore. In the same year
Philadelphia and Pittsburgh were connected by telegraph, New York and
Albany, New York and Boston, Boston and Buffalo. The first line in
California was erected in 1853.
[Illustration: The First Telegraphic Instrument, as exhibited in 1837 by
Morse.]
In 1850 Hiram Sibley embarked in the telegraph business. He bought the
House patent, and next year organized the New York and Mississippi
Valley Telegraph Company. By 1853 or 1854, some twenty companies had
started, with a capital of $7,000,000--too many for good management or
high profits. Accordingly, Sibley and Cornell united in buying them up,
and thus formed, in 1856, the Western Union, which Sibley's energy
extended all over the country east of the Rocky Mountains. In 1860 he
went to Washington with a scheme for a transcontinental telegraph line,
and secured from Congress a subsidy of $40,000 for ten years. Just then
the Overland Telegraph Company was started in San Francisco. It and
Sibley united, breaking ground July 1, 1861, and proceeding at the rate
of nearly ten miles of wire per day. On October 25th, telegraph wire
stretched all the way between the two oceans. In 1864 this line was
amalgamated with the Western Union.
[Illustration: Machine with three rollers about 2 feet in diameter and
5 feet long, connected with large gears.]
Calenders heated internally by Steam, for spreading India Rubber into
Sheets or upon Cloth, called the "Chaffee Machine."
Still more wonderful, ocean telegraphy was broached and made successful
during these years. Tentative efforts to operate the current under water
were made between Governor's Island and New York City so early as 1842.
A copper wire was used, insulated with hemp string coated with India
rubber and pitch. In 1846 a similar arrangement was encased in lead
pipe. This device failed, and sub-aqueous telegraphy seems to have been
for the time given up.
In 1854 Mr. Cyrus W. Field, of New York, with Peter Cooper and other
capitalists of that city, organized the New York, Newfoundland, and
London Telegraph Company, stock a million and a half dollars, and began
plans to connect New York with St. Johns, Newfoundland, by a cable under
the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Little progress was made, however, till 1857,
when it was attempted to lay a cable across the Atlantic from
Newfoundland. The paying out was begun at Queenstown and proceeded
successfully until three hundred and thirty-five miles had been laid,
when the cable parted. Nothing more was done till the next year in June.
Then, in 1858, after several more unsuccessful efforts, the two
continents were successfully joined. The two ships containing the cable
met in mid-ocean, where it was spliced and the paying out begun in each
direction. The one reached Newfoundland the same day, August 5th, on
which the other reached Valencia, Ireland. No break had occurred, and
after the necessary arrangements had been effected, the first message
was transmitted on August 16th. It was from the Queen of Great Britain
to the President of the United States, and read, "Glory to God in the
highest, peace on earth and good will to men." A monster celebration of
the event was had in New York next day.
[Illustration: Large steam ship with side paddles.]
The Great Eastern Laying the Atlantic Cable.
Although inter-continental communication had been actually opened, the
cable did not work, nor did ocean cabling become a successful and
regular business till 1866, when a new cable was laid. This event
attracted the more attention from the fact that the largest ship ever
built was used in paying out the cable. It was the Great Eastern, 680
feet long and 83 broad, with 25,000 tons displacement.
[Illustration: Three men tending machinery.]
Sounding Machine used by a Cable Expedition.
Street railways became common in our largest cities before 1860, the
first in New England, that between Boston and Cambridge, dating from
1856. Sleeping-cars began to be used in 1858. The express business went
on developing, being opened westward from Buffalo first in 1845. A steam
fire-engine was tried in New York in 1841, but the invention was
successful only in 1853. Baltimore used one in 1858. Goodyear
triumphantly vulcanized rubber in 1844, making serviceable a gum which
had been used in various forms already but without ability to stand
heat. Elias Howe took out his first patent for a sewing machine in 1846,
being kept in vigorous fight against infringements for the next eight
years. The anaesthetic power of ether was discovered in 1844.
Gutta-percha was first imported hither in 1847. The first application of
the Bessemer steel process in this country was made in New Jersey in
1856, the manufacture of watches by machinery begun in 1857,
photo-lithography in 1859. New York had a clearing house in 1853, Boston
in 1855. The petroleum business may with propriety be dated from 1860,
although the existence of oil in Northwestern Pennsylvania had been long
known, and some use made of it since 1826. For several years experiments
had been making in refining the oil. The excellence of the light from it
now drew attention to the value of the product, wells began to be bored
and oil land sold for fabulous prices.
[Illustration: Portrait.]
Cyrus W. Field.
[Illustration: Several men tending a large machine on the deck of a ship.]
Paying out Cable Gear. From Chart House.
We close this chapter with a word about the painful financial crisis
that swept over the country in the autumn of 1857. Its causes are
somewhat occult, but two appear to have been the chief, viz., the
over-rapid building of railroads and the speculation induced by the
prosperity and the rise of prices incident to the new output of gold.
Interest on the best securities rose to three, four, and five per cent.
a month. On ordinary securities no money at all could be had. Commercial
houses of the highest repute went down. The climax was in September and
October. The three leading banks in Philadelphia suspended specie
payments, at once followed in this by all the banks of the Middle
States, and upon the 13th of the next month by the New York banks.
Manufacturing was very largely abandoned for the time, at least thirty
thousand operatives being thrown out of work in New York City alone.
Prices even of agricultural produce fell enormously. Tramps were to be
met on every road. Easier times fortunately returned by spring, when
business resumed pretty nearly its former prosperous march.
[Illustration: Cross section of cable; central conductor is about .25
inches in diameter; it is surrounded by layers of insulation and twelve
.5 inch wires for protection.]
Shore End of Cable-exact size.
[Illustration: Barnacles on Cable.]
PERIOD IV.
CIVIL WAR AND RECONSTRUCTION
1860-1868
CHAPTER I.
CAUSES OF THE WAR
[1861]
It were a mistake to refer the great Rebellion, for ultimate source, to
ambiguity in the Constitution or to the wickedness of politicians or of
the people. It was simply the last resort in an "irrepressible conflict"
of principle--in the struggle for and against the genius of the world's
advance. Economic, social, and moral evolution, resulting in two
radically different civilizations, had enforced upon each section
unfaithfulness to the spirit and even to the letter of its
constitutional covenant. The South was not to blame that slavery was at
first profitable; and if it deemed it so too long and even thought of it
as a good morally, these convictions, however big with ill consequences
to the nation, were but errors of view, not strange considering the then
status of slavery in the world.
The South's pride, holding it to the course once chosen, was also no
indictable offence. Nor could the North on its part be taxed with crime
for its "higher law fanaticism," which was simply the spirit of the age;
or for seeing early what all believe now, that slavery was a blight upon
the land. Much as was "nominated in the bond" of the Constitution,
neither law nor equity forbade free States to increase the more rapidly
in numbers, wealth, and other elements of prosperity; and northern
congressmen must have been other than human, if, seeing this increase
and being in the majority, they had gone on punctiliously heeding formal
obligation against manifest national weal. And when, in 1854, the great
sacred compact of 1820 was set aside by the authority of the South
itself, the North felt free even from formal fetters. All talk of
extra-legal negotiations and understandings touching slavery was now at
an end. The northern majority was at last united to legislate upon
slavery as it would, subject only to the Constitution. The South too
late saw this, and fearing that the peculiar institution, shut up to its
old home, would die, sought separation, with such chance of expansion as
this might yield.
The South had come to love slavery too well, the Constitution too
little. Upon conserving slavery all parties there, however dissident as
to modes, however hostile in other matters, were unconditionally bent.
The chief argument even of those opposing disunion was that it
endangered slavery. Our new government, said Alexander H. Stephens, soon
to be vice-president of the Southern Confederacy, is founded, its
cornerstone rests, upon the great physical, philosophical, and moral
truth, to which Jefferson and the men of his day were blind, that the
negro, by nature or the curse of Canaan, is not equal to the white man;
that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is, by ordination of
Providence, whose wisdom it is not for us to inquire into or question,
his natural and normal condition. As the apostle of such a principle the
South could not but abjure the old establishment, whose genius and
working were inevitably in the contrary direction. Many confessed it to
be the essential nature of our Government, and not unfair treatment
under it, against which they rebelled.
Slavery had also bred hatred of the Union indirectly, by fostering
anti-democratic habits of thought, feeling, and action. "The form of
liberty existed, the press seemed to be free, the deliberations of
legislative bodies were tumultuous, and every man boasted of his
independence. But the spirit of true liberty, tolerance of the minority
and respect for individual opinion, had departed, and those deceitful
appearances concealed the despotism of an inexorable master, slavery,
before whom the most powerful of slave-holders was himself but a slave,
as abject as the meanest." Over wide sections, untitled manorial lords,
"more intelligent than educated, brave but irascible, proud but
overbearing," controlled all voting and office-holding. Congressional
districts were their pocket-boroughs, and they ignored the common man
save to use him. The system grew, instead of statesmen, sectionalists,
whom love for the "peculiar institution" rendered callous to national
interests.
The vigorous secession movements in the South at once after Lincoln's
election, raised a question of the first magnitude, which few people at
the North had reflected upon since 1833, viz., whether or not
non-revolutionary secession was possible. Almost unanimously the North
denied such possibility, the South affirmed it. This was at bottom
manifestly nothing but the old question of state sovereignty over again.
The South held the Union to be a state compact, which the northern
parties thereto had broken. To prove the compact theory no new proof was
now adduced. Rather did the southern people take the assertion of it as
an axiom, with a simplicity which spoke volumes for the influence of
Calhoun and for the indoctrination which the South had received in 1832.
Not alone Calhoun but nearly every other southerner of great influence,
at least from the day of the Missouri Compromise, had been inculcating
the supreme authority of the State as compared with the Union. The
southern States were all large, and, as travelling in or between them
was difficult and little common, they retained far more than those at
the North each its original separateness and peculiarities. Southern
population was more fixed than northern; southern state traditions were
held in far the deeper reverence. In a word, the colonial condition of
things to a great extent persisted in the South down to the very days of
the war. There was every reason why Alabama or North Carolina should,
more than Connecticut, feel like a separate nation.
This intense state consciousness might gradually have subsided but for
the deep prejudices and passions begotten of slavery and of the
opposition it encountered from the North. Their resolution, against
emancipation led Southerners to cherish a view which made it seem
possible for them as a last resort to sever their alliance with the
North. It was this conjunction of influences, linking the slave-holder's
jealousy and pride to a false but natural conception of state
sovereignty, which created in southern men that love of State, intense
and sincere as real patriotism, causing them to look upon northern men,
with their different theory, as foes and foreigners.
A very imposing historical argument could of course have been built up
for the Calhoun theory of the Union. The Union emerged from the
preceding Confederacy without a shock. Most who voted for it were
unaware how radical a change it embodied. The Constitution, one may even
admit, could not have been adopted had it then been understood to
preclude the possibility of secession. Doubtless, too, the gradual
change of view concerning it all over the North, sprung from the
multiplication of social and economic ties between sections and States,
rather than from study of constitutional law. We believe that the
untruth of the central-sovereignty theory in no wise follows from these
admissions, and that its correctness might be made apparent from a
plenitude of considerations.
Champions of the northern side deemed it the less necessary to expatiate
upon this question, since, admitting the South's basal contention, the
right in question depended upon sufficiency of grievance. As, in the
South's view, the case was one of sovereigns one party of whom, without
referee, was about to break a compact without the other's consent, the
adequacy of the grievance should, to excuse the step, have been
absolutely beyond question. On the contrary it was subject to the
gravest question.
The South's only significant indictment against the North was the one
concerning the personal liberty laws. Moderates like Stephens, indeed,
stoutly condemned this plea for secession as insufficient; but,
believing in the State as sovereign, they had perforce to yield, and
they became as enthusiastic as any when once this "paramount authority"
had spoken. "Fire-eaters," at first a small minority, saw this advantage
and worked it to the utmost. On its complaint touching the personal
liberty legislation the South's case utterly broke down, theorizing the
Union into a rope of sand, not "more perfect" but far less so than the
old, which itself was to be "perpetual." According to the Calhoun
contention States were the parties to a pact, and it was a good way from
clear that any northern State as such, even by personal liberty
legislation, had broken the alleged pact. The liberty laws were innocent
at least in form, and at worst had never been endorsed in any state
convention. Buchanan himself testified that the fugitive slave law had
been faithfully executed, and its operation is well known never to have
been resisted by any public authority.
It was suspicious that no State ventured upon secession alone. It was
equally remarkable that the Gulf States were the readiest to go, and
made most of the personal liberty laws as their pretext, accounting this
cry, as was ingenuously confessed, a necessary means for holding the
border States solidly to the southern cause. Weak enough, indeed, was
the complaint of "consolidationist" aggression, of which certainly no
party to the so-called pact was or could have been guilty. But the deeps
of folly were sounded when northern "persecution" of the South was
mentioned, or Lincoln's election as threat of such. This was simply the
election as President, in a perfectly constitutional way, of a citizen,
honest and unambitious, who was pledged against touching slavery in
States. Having become President, he was unable to procure minister, law,
treaty, or even adequate guard for his own person save by the consent of
the party hitherto in power. Lincoln had failed of a popular majority by
a million. Both Houses of Congress were against him at the time of his
election, and, but for the absence of southern members, they would, it
is likely, have continued so through his entire term. It was the South's
bad logic on these points which gave the war Democrats their excellent
plea for drawing sword on the northern side.
But even supposing secession technically justifiable, how strange that
it should have been judged rational, prudent, or in the long run best
for the South itself. Could aught but frenzy have so drowned in
Americans the memories of our great past; or launched them upon a course
that must have ended by Mexicanizing this nation, wresting from it the
lead in freedom's march, and crushing out, in the breast of struggling
patriotism the world over, all hope of government by and for the people!
The South ought at least to have spared itself. Either its alleged
horror at the advance of central-sovereignty sentiment at the North was
sheer pretence, or it should have been certain that this section would
not hesitate, as Buchanan so illogically did, to coerce "rebellious"
state-bodies. If the North believed the totality of the nation to be the
"paramount authority," Lincoln would surely imitate Jackson instead of
Buchanan, and in doing so he would not seek military support in vain.
[Illustration: Portrait.]
James Buchanan. From a photograph by Brady.
Quite as sure, too, must the final result have appeared from the census
of 1850, had people been calm enough to read this. By that census the
free States had a population fifty per cent. above the population of the
slave states, slaves included, and the disparity was rapidly increasing.
Their wealth was even more preponderant, being, slaves apart, nearly one
hundred per cent. the larger. Their merchant tonnage was five times the
greater--even young inland Ohio out-doing old South Carolina in this,
and the one district of New York City the whole South. The North had
three or four times the South's miles of railway, all the sinews of war
without importation, and mechanics unnumbered and of every sort. And
while champions of the Union would fight with all the prestige of law,
national history and the status quo on their side, Europe's aid to the
South, or even that of the border slave States, was more than
problematical, as was a successful career for the Confederacy in case
its independence should chance to be won. Events proved that the very
defence of slavery had best prospect in the Union, and it seems as if
this might have been foreseen by all, as it actually was by some.
CHAPTER II.
SECESSION
[1861]
Secession was no new thought at the South. It lurked darkly behind the
Kentucky and Virginia resolutions of 1798-99. It was brought out into
broad daylight by South Carolina in the nullification troubles of 1832.
"Texas or disunion!" was the cry at the South in 1843-44. In 1850 South
Carolina declared herself ready to secede in the event of legislation
hostile to slavery. Two years later the same State solemnly affirmed
that it had a right to secede, but that, out of deference to the wishes
of the other slave States, it forbore to exercise such right.
It must be admitted that in early years the North had helped to make the
thought of secession familiar. In 1803, in view of the great increase of
southern territory by the Louisiana Purchase, and again in 1813, when
New England opposition to the war with England culminated in the
Hartford Convention, there had been talk of a separate northern
confederacy. But from that time on the thought of disunion died out at
the North, while the South dallied with it more and more boldly. During
the presidential campaign of 1856, threats were made that if Fremont,
the republican candidate, should be elected, the South would leave the
Union. In October of that year a secret convention of southern governors
was held at Raleigh, N. C., supposed to have been for the purpose of
considering such a contingency. Governor Wise, of Virginia, who called
the convention, afterward proclaimed that had Fremont been chosen he
would have marched to Washington at the head of 20,000 troops, seized
the Capitol, and prevented the inauguration. This threatening attitude
in 1856 may have been chiefly an electioneering device; but during the
next four years the gulf between North and South widened rapidly, and
the southern leaders turned more and more resolutely toward secession as
the remedy for their alleged wrongs.
No sooner had the presidential campaign of 1860 begun than deep
mutterings foretold the coming storm. "Elect Lincoln, and the South will
secede!" cried the campaign orators of the South, while the halls of
Congress rang with threats similar in tenor. As the campaign went on and
republican success became probable, the southern leaders began to nerve
up their hosts for the conflict. In October the governor and congressmen
of South Carolina, with other prominent politicians, met and unanimously
resolved that if Lincoln should win, the Palmetto State ought to
renounce the Union. Similar meetings were held in Georgia, Alabama,
Mississippi, and Florida. Governor Gist sent a confidential circular to
the governors of all the cotton States declaring that South Carolina
would secede with any other State, or would make the plunge alone if
others would promise to follow. The governors of Florida, Alabama, and
Mississippi replied that their States would certainly do this. Georgia
proposed to wait for some overt act by the National Government. North
Carolina and Louisiana, it was learned, would probably not go out at
all.
But the enthusiasts in South Carolina had got all the encouragement they
wanted, and bided their time. Their time was at hand. The presidential
election fell on November 6th. Next day the tidings flashed over the
land that Abraham Lincoln had been elected President by the vote of a
solid North against a solid South. The wires had scarcely ceased to
thrill with this message of death to slavery-extension, when South
Carolina sounded a trumpet-call to the South. Her Legislature ordered a
secession state convention to meet in December, issued a call for 10,000
volunteers, and voted money for the purchase of arms. Federal
office-holders resigned. Judge Magrath, of the United States District
Court, laid aside his robes, declaring, "So far as I am concerned, the
temple of Justice raised under the Constitution of the United States is
now closed." Militia organized throughout the State. The streets of
Charleston echoed nightly with the tramp of drilling minute-men.
Secession orators harangued enthusiastic crowds. Hardly a coat but bore
a secession cockade. November 17th, the Palmetto flag was unfurled in
Charleston. It was a gala day. Cannon roared, bands played the
Marseillaise, and processions paraded the streets bearing such mottoes
as "Let's Bury the Union's Dead Carcass!" "Death to All Abolitionists!"
The whole South was beside itself with excitement. One State after
another assembled its convention to decide the question of secession.
Even the Georgia Legislature, within a week after the election of
Lincoln, voted $1,000,000 to arm the State.
The South Carolina convention met at Charleston, and on December 20th
unanimously adopted an ordinance declaring:
"The union now subsisting between South Carolina and other States, under
the name of the United States of America, is hereby dissolved."
This action was hailed with wildest enthusiasm. Huge placards--"The
Union is Dissolved!"--were posted throughout the city, while the clang
of bells and the boom of cannon notified the country round. The
sidewalks were thronged with ladies wearing secession bonnets made of
cotton with palmetto decorations. A party of gentlemen visited the tomb
of Calhoun, and there registered their vows to defend the southern cause
with their fortunes and lives. In the evening the convention marched to
the hall in procession, and formally signed the revolutionary ordinance.
The chairman then solemnly proclaimed South Carolina an "independent
commonwealth." The little State, whose white population was less than
300,000, began to play at being a nation. The governor was authorized to
appoint a cabinet and receive foreign ambassadors, and the papers put
information from other parts of the country under the head of "foreign
news."
[Illustration: Street Banner in Charleston.]
"One voice and millions of strong arms to uphold the honor of South
Carolina 1776-1860"
The secession of South Carolina was greeted with joy in most of the
other slave States. Montgomery and Mobile, Ala., each fired one hundred
guns. At Richmond, Va., a palmetto banner was unfurled, while bells,
bonfires, and processions celebrated the event all over the South. The
other cotton States, spurred on by the bold deed of South Carolina,
rapidly followed her lead. Mississippi seceded January 9th, Florida the
10th, Alabama the 11th, Georgia the 19th, Louisiana the 26th, Texas
February 1st.
It is probable that only in South Carolina, Mississippi, and Florida
were the majority of whites in favor of secession. The South was after
all full of Union sentiment. The ordinance of secession proceeded in
each State from a convention, and the election of delegates to this
witnessed the earnest work. The noble efforts of those Union men in
their fierce struggle have never yet been appreciated. But they fought
against great odds, and were inevitably overborne. The opposition was
organized, ably led, and white-hot with zeal. The political power and
the wealth of the South lay in the hands of the secessionists. The
clergy threw their weight on that side, preaching that slavery, God's
ordinance, was in danger. Union proclivities were crushed out by force.
Vigilance committees were everywhere on the alert. In the rougher States
of the Southwest abolitionists were tarred and feathered. Some were
shot. In all the States Union men were warned to keep quiet or leave the
South. One of the most powerful agents of intimidation was the Knights
of the Golden Circle, a vast secret society which extended throughout
the southern States.
Yet, in spite of all, the vote was close even in several of the cotton
States. The Georgia people wanted new safeguards for slavery, but did
not at first desire secession. Alexander H. Stephens, who headed the
anti-secession movement, declared that Georgia was won over to take the
fatal step at last only by the cry, "Better terms can be made out of the
Union than in it." Even then the first vote for secession stood only 165
to 130. In Louisiana the popular vote for convention delegates was
20,000 for secession and 17,000 against.
The border States held aloof. Kentucky and Tennessee refused to call
conventions. So, for long, did North Carolina. The convention of
Virginia and of Missouri each had a majority of Union delegates. When
the Confederate Government was organized in February, only seven of the
fifteen slave States had seceded. Their white population was about
2,600,000, or less than half that of the entire slave region. But
Arkansas and North Carolina were soon swept along by the current, and
seceded in May. Virginia and Tennessee were finally carried (the former
in May, the latter in June) by the aid of troops, who swarmed in from
the seceded States, and turned the elections into a farce. Unionists in
the Virginia Convention were given the choice to vote secession, leave,
or be hanged. Missouri, Kentucky, Delaware, and Maryland resisted all
attempts to drag them into the Confederacy, though the first two, after
the United States began to apply force, appeared neutral rather than
loyal.
The seizure of United States property went hand in hand with secession.
Most of the government works were feebly garrisoned, and made no
resistance. By January 15th the secessionists had possession of arsenals
at Augusta, Ga., Mount Vernon, Ala., Fayetteville, N. C, Chattahoochee,
Fla., and Baton Rouge, La., of forts in Alabama and Georgia, of a
navy-yard at Pensacola, Fla., and of Forts Jackson and St. Philip,
commanding the mouth of the Mississippi. At one arsenal they found
150,000 pounds of powder, at another 22,000 muskets and rifles, besides
ammunition and cannon, at another 50,000 small arms and 20 heavy guns.
The whole South had been well supplied with military stores by the
enterprising foresight of J. B. Floyd, of Virginia, Buchanan's Secretary
of War, who had sent thither 115,000 muskets from the Springfield
arsenal alone.
[Illustration: Portrait.]
Major Robert Anderson.
Fort Moultrie, in Charleston harbor, was held by Major Robert Anderson,
of Kentucky, with a garrison of some seventy men. On December 27th the
whole country was thrilled, and the South enraged, by the news that on
the previous night Anderson had secretly transferred his whole force to
Fort Sumter, a new and stronger work in the centre of the harbor,
leaving spiked cannon and burning gun-carriages behind him at Moultrie.
The South Carolina militia at once occupied the deserted fortress with
the other harbor fortifications, and began to put them into a state of
defence. At Pensacola, Fla., Lieutenant Slemmer, by a movement similar
to Anderson's, held Fort Pickens.
[Illustration: Several soldiers loading boats by moonlight.]
Major Anderson removing his Forces from Fort Moultrie to Fort Sumter,
December 26, 1861.
The seizure of government property went on through January and February.
In Louisiana all the commissary stores were confiscated, and the revenue
cutter McClelland surrendered. The mint at New Orleans, containing over
half a million in gold and silver, was seized. More than half of the
regular army were stationed in Texas, under General Twiggs. In February,
at the demand of a secessionist committee of public safety, he
surrendered his entire force, together with eighteen military posts. The
troops were sent to a Gulf port and there detained.
This wholesale seizure of government property, worth some $20,000,000,
has brought down upon the South much scathing rebuke. The conduct of
Floyd, stabbing his country under the cloak of a cabinet office, cannot
be too strongly condemned; but with the seceding States the case was
different. Having (so they thought) established themselves as
independent republics, they could not allow the military works within
their borders to remain in the hands of a foreign power. As to the
Government's property right, they recognized it, and proposed to pay
damages. The provisional constitution of the Confederacy, adopted in
February, provided for negotiations to settle the claim of the United
States.
The southern leaders were not more anxious to get the slave States out
of the Union than to get them into a grand Southern Confederacy. Early
in January a caucus of secession congressmen was held at Washington, and
arrangements made for a constitutional convention.
February 4, 1861, delegates from the States which had left the Union met
at Montgomery, Ala., and formed themselves into a provisional Congress.
A temporary government, styled "The Confederate States of America," was
soon organized. Jefferson Davis, of Mississippi, was chosen President by
the Congress, and Alexander H. Stephens, of Georgia, Vice-President.
Davis was born in Kentucky in 1808. He graduated at West Point, fought
as colonel in the Mexican war, served three terms as congressman from
Mississippi, the last two in the Senate, and was Secretary of War under
Pierce. After Calhoun's death, in 1850, he became the most prominent of
the ultra southern leaders. The new President was brought from Jackson,
Miss., to Montgomery by a special train, his progress a continual
ovation. Cheering crowds gathered at every station to see and hear him.
February 18th Davis was inaugurated. In his address, which was calm and
moderate in tone, he declared that reunion was now "neither practicable
nor desirable;" he hoped for peace, but said that if the North refused
this, the South must appeal to arms, secure in the blessing of God on a
just cause.
[Illustration: Portrait.]
Jefferson Davis.
The Confederate President was intrusted with very large powers,
including supreme control of military affairs. He was authorized to
muster into the service of the central government the regiments which
had been forming in the various States. A call was issued for 100,000
volunteers, and provision made for organizing a regular army. President
Davis appointed a cabinet, with state, treasury, war, navy, and
post-office departments. Robert Toombs, of Georgia, a rabid
secessionist, became Secretary of State.
March 11th the Confederate Congress adopted a permanent constitution. It
reproduced that of the United States, with some important changes. State
sovereignty was recognized in the preamble, which read, "We, the people
of the Confederate States, each State acting in its sovereign and
independent character," etc. Slavery was called by name, and elaborate
safeguards fixed for it in the States and Territories. Slave-trade from
beyond the sea, or with states not in the Confederacy, was, however,
prohibited. Protective tariffs were absolutely forbidden. The president
and vice-president were to serve six years, and the former could not be
re-elected. Some valuable features were inserted. Members of the cabinet
might discuss matters pertaining to their departments in either house of
congress. The president could veto one part of an appropriation bill
without killing the whole, and was required to lay before the senate his
reasons for the removal of any officers from the civil service.
[Illustration: Portrait.]
Alexander H. Stephens.
By the last of April all the seceded States had ratified this
constitution. The other slave States were taken in as fast as they
withdrew from the Union. The Southern Confederacy, now fairly launched,
set sail over strange seas upon its short but eventful voyage. At the
start the hopes of those it bore rose high. Few believed that the North
would dare draw sword. Even if it should, the southern heart, proud and
brave, felt sure of victory. King Cotton would win Europe to their side.
Peace would come soon. Visions of a glorious future dazzled the
imaginative mind of the South. A vast slave empire, founded on the
"great physical, philosophical, and moral truth" that slavery is the
"natural condition," of the inferior black race, would spread encircling
arms around the Great Gulf, swallowing up the feeble states of Mexico,
and rise to a wealth and glory unparalleled in the history of nations.
CHAPTER III.
THE NORTH IN THE WINTER OF 1860-61
[1860-1861]
At the beginning of the secession movement the North slumbered and
slept. Even South Carolina's withdrawal from the Union caused little
alarm. "She will be glad enough to come back before long," prophesied
many. As the revolution progressed there was a gradual awakening, but
division of opinion paralyzed action. Ultra Abolitionists, with a few
others, urged that the South be let go in peace. Most Republicans
favored the preservation of the Union by force of arms if necessary; but
nearly all Democrats, with many Republicans, wished for compromise. Of
the latter class a few prayed the prodigals to return on their own
terms. More proposed a rigid enforcement of the fugitive slave law, the
repeal of personal liberty legislation, and acquiescence in the Dred
Scott decision, with all future like decrees of the Supreme Court. This
may be called the northern-democratic position. The most pronounced
Republicans, as Seward and Stanton, would gladly have voted to
re-enforce the Constitution's guarantee to slavery in the slave States.
Throughout the North the feeling was strong against all efforts at
coercion. Most democratic papers and many republican ones insisted
loudly that use of arms was not to be mentioned, and that the South must
be conciliated. A democratic convention met at Albany in January, to
protest against forcible measures. The sentiment that if force were to
be used it should be "inaugurated at home," here evoked hearty response.
There were signs of even a deeper disaffection. An ex-governor of New
Jersey declared that his State would join the Confederacy. Mayor Wood,
of New York, proposed that if the Union were broken up, his city should
announce herself an independent republic.
At Washington matters were still worse. President Buchanan, loyal but
weak, feared to lift a finger. In his December message to Congress, he
insisted that a State had no right to secede, but that the United States
had no power to coerce a State which should secede. A majority of his
cabinet were southern men, three of them zealous secessionists. His most
intimate friends in Congress were southerners. These surrounded the
vacillating Chief Magistrate, and paralyzed what little energy was in
him, meanwhile taking advantage of his inaction to launch the
Confederacy. Now and then, spurred on by loyal old General Scott and by
the Union members of his cabinet, the President tried to break away from
the toils which the conspirators had spun around him. The Star of the
West was secretly sent with supplies and recruits to re-enforce Fort
Sumter. But Secretary Thompson warned South Carolina, and when the
vessel arrived off Charleston, January 9th, hostile batteries fired upon
her and forced her out to sea again. Another plan to relieve the fort
was half formed, but came to nothing. Buchanan's term was on the point
of expiring, and he sat supinely looking on while the disruption of the
Union proceeded apace.
The northern side in Congress showed little wisdom or spirit. Most
northern congressmen truckled to the South or wasted their energies in
fruitless attempts at compromise. Both houses, each by more than a
two-thirds majority, recommended a constitutional amendment depriving
Congress forever of the power to touch slavery in any State without the
consent of all the States. In December the venerable Crittenden, of
Kentucky, laid before the Senate his famous Suggestions for Compromise.
These, besides embodying the above amendment, restored the Missouri
Compromise, let each new State decide for itself whether it would be
slave or free, and forbade Congress to abolish slavery in the District
of Columbia or interfere with the inter-state transportation of slaves.
The United States was to pay for all fugitives whose capture should be
successfully prevented, and slaves as slaves could be carried through
free States. This measure, before Congress all winter, was finally lost
only for lack of southern votes.
A peace congress, called by Virginia, met at Washington in February.
Most of the northern States were represented and all the southern which
had not seceded. It sat for three weeks, and adopted resolutions
identical in substance with the Crittenden Compromise. These dangerously
large offers of concession, mainly well meant, happily proved useless.
The South had gone too far. She did not want compromise, but was bent
upon setting up a slave empire.
Mr. Lincoln arrived safely in Washington on February 23d, having eluded
a rumored plot to assassinate him in Baltimore. He accomplished this by
assuming a slight disguise and taking an earlier train than the one in
which he had been announced to go. He was duly inaugurated on March 4th.
In his inaugural he disclaimed all purpose to interfere with slavery in
the slave States, yet denied the right of secession, and proposed to
regain and hold the property and places belonging to the United States
in all parts thereof. There would be no bloodshed, he said, unless it
were forced upon the Government. "In your hands, my dissatisfied
fellow-countrymen," so ran his memorable words, "in your hands, not in
mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. You can have no conflict
without being yourselves the aggressors. We are not enemies, but
friends." This message, held out as an olive branch, the South denounced
as a menace. Some northern papers condemned it as the "knell and requiem
of the Union." But the general feeling it evoked at the North was one of
rejoicing. People believed that a hand both moderate and firm had at
length seized the helm.
The new President stood faced by an herculean task. Congress was not yet
fully purged of traitors, while Washington still swarmed with their
friends and agents. Floyd's treachery had tied Lincoln's hands. All the
best munitions of war had been sent south. Of the rifled cannon
belonging to the United States not one was left. Only a handful of
regular troops were within call, and the resignations of their officers
came in daily. The plight of the navy and treasury was no better.
Amazing coolness and the absurd prejudice against coercing States
largely possessed even the loyal masses. The attack on Sumter was thus a
god-send.
April 8th, Governor Pickens received notice from President Lincoln that
an attempt would be made to provision that fort. Thereupon General
Beauregard, who had left the United States army to take charge of the
fortifications at Charleston, was ordered by President Davis to demand
its evacuation. Major Anderson replied that they should be starved out
by the 15th, and would leave the fort then unless his Government sent
supplies. This answer was held unsatisfactory, and at 3.20 on the
morning of April 12th Beauregard notified Anderson that his batteries
would open fire in one hour.
Fort Sumter stood on an artificial island at the entrance of the harbor.
It was pentagonal in shape, the walls of brick, eight feet thick and
forty feet high. The parapet was pierced for 140 guns, but only 48 were
in condition for use. The garrison, including some 40 workmen and a
band, numbered 128. Surrounding the fort on all sides except toward the
sea, and distant from 1,300 to 2,500 yards, 19 Confederate batteries
were in position, mounting 47 cannon and mortars, and manned by 3,000 or
4,000 volunteers. These works were provided with bomb-proofs made of
railroad iron or of palmetto logs and sand.
The wharves, roofs, and steeples of Charleston were black with expectant
crowds, straining their eyes down the harbor where the silent castle
loomed up through the dim morning light. Boom! From a mortar battery to
the south a bombshell rises high into the air, describes its graceful
trajectory and falls within Sumter's enclosure. It is the signal gun.
One battery after another responds, until in less than an hour the
stronghold is girt by an almost continuous circle of flashing artillery.
Shells scream through the air and explode above the doomed work, and
great cannon-balls bury themselves in the brick walls. Still Sumter
speaks not. Anderson is waiting for daylight. About six o'clock he
breakfasts his garrison on pork and water, the only provisions left. An
hour later the embrasures are opened, the black guns run out, and Sumter
hurls back her answer to the voice of rebellion. The bombs making it
unsafe to use the barbette cannons of the open rampart, Anderson was
confined to his twenty-one casemate pieces, mostly of light calibre. The
fire was kept up briskly all the morning. Sumter stood it well, but did
little damage to the opposing batteries. At sunset the guns of both
sides became silent, but the mortars maintained a slow fire through the
night.
Early next morning the cannonade opened afresh, and in the course of the
forenoon hot shot set fire to Sumter's wooden barracks. The flames soon
got beyond control; the powder magazine had to be closed; and the heat
and smoke became so stifling that the garrison was forced, in order to
avoid suffocation, to lie face downward upon the floor, each man with a
wet cloth at his mouth. Powder was at last exhausted. About one o'clock
the flag was shot away. It was immediately raised again upon a low
jury-mast, but could not be seen for the smoke, and Beauregard sent to
ask if Anderson had surrendered. The latter offered to evacuate upon the
terms named before the bombardment, to which Beauregard agreed, and all
firing ceased. The next day at noon, after a salute of fifty guns to
their flag, Major Anderson and his men evacuated the scene of their
heroism, and soon after took passage for New York.
The disunion leaders had rightly calculated that an open blow would
bring the border slave States into the Confederacy; but they had not
anticipated the effect of such a deed beyond Mason and Dixon's line.
When it was known that the old flag had been fired upon, a thrill of
passionate rage electrified the North from Maine to Oregon. Then was
witnessed an uprising unparalleled in our history if not in that of
mankind. From every city, town, and hamlet, loud and earnest came the
call, "The Union must be preserved! Away with compromise! Away with
further attempts to conciliate traitors! To arms!" Slavery might do all
else, so little did most northerners yet feel its evil, but it could not
rend the Union. Pulpit, platform, and press echoed with patriotic cries.
Everywhere were Union meetings, speeches, and parades. Union badges
decked everyone's clothing, and the Stars and Stripes were kept unfurled
as only on national holidays before. In New York City a mass-meeting of
two hundred thousand declared for war. The New York Herald changed its
sneer to a war-blast. Party lines were thrown down. Democrats like
Butler, Cass, and Dickinson were in the Union van. Senator Douglas,
lately Lincoln's antagonist, and at first strongly opposed to coercion,
went through the West arousing the people by his patriotic eloquence.
"There can be no neutrals now," were his words, "only patriots and
traitors."
[Illustration: Route of the Sixth Massachusetts Troops through Baltimore.]
April 15th, President Lincoln issued a call for seventy-five thousand
volunteers, and each free State responded with twice its quota.
Enlisting offices were opened in every town and hamlet, and the roll of
the drum and the tramp of armed men with faces set southward were heard
all over the North. First to march was the Sixth Massachusetts Regiment.
Forming on Boston Common it took cars for Washington on April 17th,
reaching Baltimore on the morning of the 19th.
Maryland was trembling in the balance between Union and disunion. A
determined disunionist minority was working with might and main to drag
the State into secession. Baltimore was white-hot with southern zeal,
determined that the Bay State troops should never reach Washington
through that metropolis. Eight of the cars containing the soldiers were
drawn safely across the city. The next was assailed by a hooting mob,
and the windows smashed in by bricks and paving stones. Some of the
soldiers were wounded by pistol shots, and a scattering fire was
returned. Sand, stones, anchors, and other obstructions were heaped upon
the track. The remaining four companies therefore left the cars and
started to march. They soon met the mob, flying a secession flag. A
melee ensued. The troops moved double-quick toward the Washington depot,
surrounded by a seething mass of infuriated secessionists filling the
air with their brick-bats and stones, while bullets whizzed from
sidewalks and windows. The troops returned the fire, and several in the
crowd fell. The chief of police with fifty officers appeared on the
scene, who, by presenting cocked revolvers, held the rioters in check
for a while, till the distressed troops could join their comrades.
Baltimore was in the hands of this secessionist band for the rest of the
day. The bridges north of that city were also burned, so that no more
troops could reach Washington by this route.
[Illustration: Waterfront; ships and buildings.]
Scene of the First Bloodshed, at Baltimore.
Meanwhile the capital city was in great peril, devotees of the South
being each moment expected to make an attack upon it. Only fifteen
companies of local militia and six of regulars were present at
inauguration time, stationed by General Scott at critical points in the
city. Pickets were posted continually on roads and bridges outside. Four
hundred Pennsylvania troops happily arrived on April 18th, and the next
day came the Sixth Massachusetts. But the city was not yet secure. There
were reports that large bodies of men were gathering in Maryland and
Virginia for a descent upon it. Washington was put in a state of siege,
the public buildings barricaded and provided with sentinels. The
Government seized the Potomac steamers and also all the flour within
reach. Business ceased. Alarmed by rumors of a military impressment,
hundreds of government clerks, besides officers in the army and navy,
came out in their true colors and fled south. Enemies at Baltimore had
cut off telegraphic communication between Washington and the North.
Reports came that re-enforcements were on the way, but day followed day
without witnessing their arrival. The President and all Unionists were
in an agony of suspense.
[Illustration: Map of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland and Virginia.]
The Routes of Approach to Washington.
Russell & Struthers, Eng's, N. York.
On April 22d the Eighth Massachusetts, under General B. F. Butler, and
the famous Seventh Regiment from New York City, met at Annapolis. Here
they were delayed several days. Governor Hicks had warned them not to
land on Maryland soil. The railroad to Washington had been torn up for
many miles and the engines damaged. Among his troops Butler found the
very machinists who had made the engines. Repairs were promptly
effected, the track re-laid, and about noon of the 25th the gallant New
Yorkers landed in Washington amid the joyful shouts of the loyal
populace. Up Pennsylvania Avenue swept the solid ranks, bands playing
and colors flying, to gladden the heart of the careworn President as he
welcomed them at the White House. A sudden change came over the city.
Secessionists slunk away, the faces of the loyal beamed with joy. The
national capital was safe.
CHAPTER IV.
WAR BEGUN
[1861]
It was now apparent to both North and South that war was inevitable. Yet
neither side believed the other in full earnest or dreamed of a long
struggle. Sanguine northerners looked to see the rebellion stamped out
in thirty days. The more cautious allowed three months.
The President, however, soon saw that more troops, enlisted for a longer
term, would be necessary. At the outset the South certainly possessed
decided advantages: greater earnestness, more men of leisure aching for
war and accustomed to saddle and firearms, a militia better organized,
owing to fear of slave insurrections, and now for a long time in special
training, and withal a certain soldierly fire and dash native to the
people. The South also had superior arms. Enlistments there were prompt
and abundant. The troops were ably commanded, 262 of the 951 regular
army officers whom secession found in service, including many very high
in rank, joining their States in the new cause, besides a large number
of West Point graduates from civil life.
Accordingly on May 3d Mr. Lincoln issued a new call for troops, 42,000
volunteers to serve three years or during the war, 23,000 regulars, and
18,000 seamen. It was of first importance to secure Maryland for the
Union. On the night of May 13th, under cover of a thunderstorm, General
Butler suddenly entered rebellious Baltimore with less than 1,000 men,
and entrenched upon Federal Hill. Overawed by this bold move, the
secessionists made no resistance. A political reaction soon set in
throughout the State, which became firmly Unionist. Baltimore was once
more open to the passage of troops, who kept steadily hurrying to the
front.
Meanwhile the Confederate forces were getting uncomfortably close to
Washington. From the White House a secession flag could be seen flying
at Alexandria, which was occupied by a small pro-secession garrison.
There was fear lest that party would occupy Arlington Heights, across
from Washington, and thence pour shot and shell into the city. At two
o'clock on the morning of May 24th, eight regiments crossed the Potomac
and took possession of these hills as far south as Alexandria, and
fortified them. The latter place was entered by Colonel Ellsworth with
his famous New York Zouaves. No resistance was made, as the Confederates
had retired, but Ellsworth was brutally assassinated while hauling down
the secession flag.
[Illustration: Portrait.]
Captain Nathaniel Lyon.
Upon the secession of Virginia the Confederate capital was removed to
Richmond. The main armies of both sides were now encamped on Old
Dominion soil, and at no great distance apart; but the commanders were
busy drilling their raw troops, so that for a time only trifling
engagements occurred. General Butler, with a considerable body of men,
was occupying Fortress Monroe, at the mouth of the James River. June
10th, an expedition sent by him against the Confederates at Big Bethel,
some twelve miles distant, was repulsed after a spirited attack, with a
total loss of sixty-eight. A week later an Ohio regiment took the cars
to make a reconnoissance toward Vienna, a village not far south of
Washington. They were surprised by Confederates, who placed two guns on
the track and fired on the train as it came around a curve. The Ohioans
sprang to the ground, and after some fighting drove their opponents
back.
All this time both North and South were struggling for possession of the
neutral States. Governor Jackson, of Missouri, was straining every nerve
to force his State into secession. Early in May two or three regiments
of militia were got together and drilled in a camp near St. Louis.
Cannon were sent by President Davis, boxed up and marked "marble."
Captain Lyon, of the regular army, who held the St. Louis arsenal with a
few companies, reconnoitred the secessionist camp in female dress. The
next day, May 10th, assisted by local militia, he suddenly surrounded it
and took 1,200 prisoners. A month later he embarked some soldiers on
three swift steamers, sailed up the Missouri to Jefferson City, the
state capital, and raised the Union flag once more over the State House.
Governor Jackson fled. During the next month all the armed disunionists
were driven into the southwestern part of the State.
[Illustration: Portrait.]
General John C. Fremont.
The last of July a state convention organized a provisional government
and declared for the Union. But the secessionists, under General Price,
continued the struggle. The Union forces, after a brave fight against
great odds at Wilson's Creek, August 10th, in which Lyon was killed, had
to retreat north. General Fremont had shortly before been put at the
head of the Western Department, which included Missouri, Kentucky,
Illinois, and Kansas. His difficulties were great. He was unable to
clear the State of secessionists, who besieged Lexington and took it on
September 20th. Generals Hunter and Halleck, Fremont's successors, were
equally unsuccessful, and the State was harassed by a petty warfare all
the year.
In Kentucky, Governor Magoffin was inclined to secession. The
Legislature leaned the other way, but preferred neutrality to active
participation on either side. September 6th, Brigadier-General U. S.
Grant occupied Paducah, an important strategical point at the junction
of the Ohio and Tennessee rivers. Next day the Confederate General Polk,
advancing from below, took possession of Columbus on the Mississippi.
With both hostile armies thus encamped on her soil, Kentucky could no
longer be neutral. Her decision was quickly taken. The Legislature
demanded of President Davis to withdraw Polk's forces, at the same time
calling upon General Anderson, the hero of Sumter, who had been placed
in charge of the Department of the Cumberland, to take active measures
for the defence of this his native State.
The mountain portion of Virginia belonged to the West rather than to the
South. It contained only 18,000 slaves, against nearly 500,000 in
Eastern Virginia. Union sentiment was therefore strong, and when the old
State seceded from the Union, Western Virginia proceeded to secede from
the State. General Lee sent troops to hold it for the Confederacy.
Thereupon General McClellan, commanding the Department of the Ohio,
threw several regiments across the river into Virginia, and defeated the
foe in minor engagements at Philippi, Rich Mountain, and Carrick's Ford.
By the middle of July he was able to report, "Secession is killed in
this country." Later in the year the Confederates renewed their
attempts, but were finally driven out. West Virginia organized a
separate government, and was subsequently admitted to the Union as a
State by itself.
[Illustration: Map.]
Bull Run--the Field of Strategy.
While these struggles were going on in the border commonwealths, the
Union soldiers lay inactive along the Potomac. Constant drill had
changed the mob into some semblance of an organized army, but the
careful Scott feared to risk a general engagement. The hostile forces
stretched in three pairs of groups across Virginia from northwest to
southeast. In the southeastern part of the State, at Fortress Monroe,
Butler faced the Confederate Magruder. At Manassas, opposite Washington,
and about thirty miles southwest, lay a Confederate army under General
Beauregard. General Patterson, a veteran of the War of 1812, commanded
considerable forces in Southern Pennsylvania. About the middle of June
he advanced against Harper's Ferry, which had been abandoned by the
Unionists the latter part of April and was now occupied by General
Joseph E. Johnston. Johnston evacuated the place upon Patterson's
approach, and retreated up the Shenandoah Valley, in a southwesterly
direction, to Winchester. Patterson followed part way, and the two
armies now lay watching each other.
Anxious to see the rebellion put down by one blow, the North was
becoming impatient. "On to Richmond!" was the ceaseless cry. Yielding to
this, Scott ordered an advance. July 16th, General McDowell, leaving one
division to protect Washington, led forth an army 28,000 strong to
attack the enemy at Manassas. He advanced slowly and with great caution.
The enemy were found posted in a line eight miles long upon the south
bank of Bull Run, a small river three miles east of Manassas, running in
a southeasterly direction. Several days were spent in reconnoitering.
Meanwhile, Johnston, whom Patterson was expected to hold at Winchester,
had stolen away to join Beauregard, their combined forces numbering
about 30,000. McDowell was ignorant of Johnston's movement, supposing
him still at Winchester.
[Illustration: Portrait.]
General Irvin McDowell.
On the morning of the 21st McDowell advanced to the attack. Beauregard
held all the lower fords, besides a stone bridge on the Warrenton
turnpike which crosses the river at right angles. Two divisions, under
Hunter and Heintzelman, were set in motion before sunrise to make a
flanking detour and cross Bull Run at Sudley's Ford, some distance
farther up. To distract attention from this movement, Tyler's division
began an attack at the stone bridge. This was held by a regiment and a
half, with four guns, under General Evans. He replied vigorously at
first, but perceiving after a while that Tyler was only feigning, and
learning of the flank movement above, he left four companies at the
bridge and drew up the rest of his forces on a ridge north of Warrenton
turnpike to await Hunter and Heintzelman's approach down the Sudley
road.
[Illustration: Portrait.]
General Samuel P. Heintzelman.
The fight began about ten o'clock. Both sides were soon re-enforced.
After two hours' stubborn fighting the Confederates were driven back
across the pike, beyond Young's Branch of Bull Run, and took up a second
position on a hill each side of the Henry House. The whole Union force
had now crossed Bull Run. Griffin's and Ricketts' powerful batteries
were posted in favorable positions, whence they poured a deadly fire
upon the Confederates. The whole Union line advanced to the turnpike.
About two o'clock the Confederates were forced to abandon their second
position and fall back still farther.
Early in the morning Beauregard and Johnston had given orders for an
attack upon the Union forces across the river, not knowing that McDowell
had assumed the offensive. These orders were now countermanded, and all
available troops hurried up the Sudley road toward the Warrenton pike
front. Till after noon the prospect for the Confederates looked gloomy.
They had been steadily driven back. Some of their regiments had lost
heavily, while all were more or less demoralized. Johnston and
Beauregard gave their personal direction to re-forming the line upon a
second ridge to the south of the Warrenton pike, under cover of a
semicircular piece of woods. Twelve regiments, with twenty-two guns and
two companies of cavalry, concentrated in this favorable position and
awaited the Union advance.
[Illustration: Map.]
Bull Run-Battle of the Forenoon.
McDowell had fourteen regiments available for the attack. He decided to
hurl them against the Confederate centre and left. About half-past two
Griffin's and Ricketts' batteries took up an advanced position on Henry
Hill. The Confederate guns opened fire, and a short artillery duel took
place. A Confederate regiment now advances to capture the exposed
batteries. They are mistaken for Union re-enforcements and allowed to
come within close range. The muskets are levelled. A terrible volley is
poured into the batteries. The gunners are stricken down. The frantic
horses dash madly down the hill. After a little confusion the Union
troops boldly advance and retake the batteries. The battle surges back
and forth. The guns are three times captured and lost again. The fight
becomes general along the Confederate centre and left. The Union
generals are getting alarmed. So far they have been confident of
victory. Now regiment after regiment is going to pieces in this terrific
melee, and still the "rebels" hold their ground. About half-past four
o'clock General Early arrives by rail with three thousand more of
Johnston's army, and, assisted by a battery and five companies of
cavalry, bursts upon the extreme right flank and rear of McDowell's
line.
[Illustration: Map.]
Bull Run--Battle of the Afternoon.
This manoeuvre decided the day. The Union ranks waver, break, flee. The
centre and left soon follow, though in better order. Union and
Confederate generals alike were astonished at the sudden change.
McDowell found it impossible to stem the tide once set in, and gave
orders to fall back across Bull Run to Centreville, where his reserves
were stationed. As the retreat went on it turned to a downright rout.
The Confederates made only a feeble pursuit, but fear of pursuit spread
alarm through the flying ranks, demoralized by long marching and hard
fighting. Baggage and ammunition-wagons, ambulances, private vehicles
which had been standing in the rear, joined the sweeping tide, adding to
the confusion and in some places causing temporary blockade. Frightened
teamsters cut traces and galloped recklessly away. Panic and stampede
resulted, soon reaching the soldiers. Flinging away muskets and
knapsacks, they sought safety in flight. The army entered Centreville a
disorganized mass. Fugitives could not be stayed even there, but
streamed through and on toward Washington. McDowell gave the order to
continue the retreat. The reserve brigades, with the one regiment of
regulars, covered the rear in good order. All that night the crazy
hustle to the rear was kept up, and on Monday the hungry and exhausted
stragglers poured into Washington under a drizzling rain, the people
receiving them with heavy hearts but generous hands.
[Illustration: Portrait.]
General Joseph E. Johnston.
The Union loss was 481 killed, 1,011 wounded, 1,460 prisoners.
Twenty-five guns were lost, thirteen of them on the retreat. The
Confederate loss was 387 killed, 1,580 wounded. The numbers actively
engaged were about 18,000 on each side. General Sherman pronounced Bull
Run "one of the best planned battles of the war, but one of the worst
fought." The latter fact was but natural. The troops on both sides were
poorly drilled, and most of them had never been under fire before.
Precision of movement, concert of action on any large scale, were
impossible. Neither side needed to be ashamed of this initial trial.
The North was at first much cast down. The faint-hearted considered the
Union hopelessly lost, but pluck and patriotism carried the day. On the
morrow after the battle Congress voted that an army of 500,000 should be
raised, and appropriated $500,000,000 to carry on the war. General
McClellan, whose brilliant campaign in West Virginia had won him easy
fame, was put in command of the Army of the Potomac. The young general
was a West Point graduate and had served with distinction in the Mexican
War. An accomplished military student, a skilful engineer, and a superb
organizer, he threw himself with energy into the task of fortifying
Washington and building up a splendid army. Many of the three-months
volunteers re-enlisted. Thousands of new recruits came flocking to camp,
and before long companies, regiments, and brigades amounting to 150,000
men were drilling daily on the banks of the Potomac, while formidable
works crowned the entire crest of Arlington Heights. In October the aged
General Scott resigned, and McClellan, at the summit of his popularity
with army and people, became commander-in-chief.
[Illustration: Portrait.]
General George B. McClellan.
For several weeks after Bull Run it was feared that Beauregard and his
men would descend upon Washington, then in a defenceless condition; but
they were in no state to attack. They too felt the need of preparation
for the coming struggle, whose magnitude both sides now began to
realize.
A disheartening affair occurred in October. On the night of the 20th two
Massachusetts regiments crossed the Potomac at Ball's Bluff, a few miles
above Washington, to surprise a hostile camp which according to rumor
had been established there. A large force concealed in the woods
attacked and forced them to retreat. They were re-enforced by 1,900 men
under Colonel Baker. The enemy were also re-enforced. Baker was killed
and the Union soldiers driven over the bluff into the river. The boats
were totally inadequate in number, and the men had to make their way
across as best they could, exposed to the Confederate fire. The total
Union loss was 1,000.
On the whole, then, the South had reason to be gratified with the
aggregate result of the first year of war. Bull Run gave the
Confederates a sense of invincibility, and the ready recognition by the
foreign powers of their rights as belligerents, offered hope that
England would soon acknowledge their independence itself. And they
thought that the North had been doing its best when it had only been
getting ready.
END OF VOLUME III.